The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His ExistenceRemsburg, John E. (John Eleazer)
Religion
The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence
Remsburg, John E. (John Eleazer)
Jesus Christ -- Historicity; Jesus Christ -- Rationalistic interpretations; Rationalism
Paul says: "I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and
Gaius.... For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel"
(1 Corinthians i, 14, 17).
533
What constitutes Christian baptism, immersion or sprinkling?
With millions of Bibles in circulation, the Christian does not
know. If he affirms, as many scholars affirm, that immersion is the
mode authorized by the Bible, then he must admit that the greater
portion of Christendom has rejected this mode and adopted one not
authorized by the Scriptures.
To whom is this rite to be administered, to both adults and infants,
or to adults alone?
After eighteen centuries of controversy; after employing millions of
priests to interpret the Scriptures; after Anabaptists and Pedobaptists
have baptized their swords in each others' blood, the church is not
prepared to answer.
534
Did Christ command his disciples to repeat and perpetuate the
observance of the Eucharist?
Luke: He did. "This do in remembrance of me."
Matthew, Mark and John: He did not.
It is admitted by Dr. Westcott and others that the earlier versions
of Luke did not contain the injunction quoted. Christ, then, according
to the Four Gospels did not institute the Eucharist as a sacrament to
be observed by his disciples and the church. Referring to the Twelve
Apostles, the Rev. Dr. Minot J. Savage says: "They knew nothing about
any sacraments; they had not been instituted" (What is Christianity?).
535
What did he teach in regard to the efficacy of prayer?
"All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall
receive" (Matthew xxi, 22).
This is one of the cardinal doctrines of his religion. He is
continually impressing upon the minds of his hearers the necessity
and the efficacy of prayer. Referring to this doctrine, Greg says:
"This doctrine has in all ages been a stumbling block to the
thoughtful. It is obviously irreconcilable with all that reason and
revelation teach us of the divine nature; and the inconsistency has
been felt by the ablest of the Scripture writers themselves. Various
and desperate have been the expedients and suppositions resorted to,
in order to reconcile the conception of an immutable, all-wise,
all-foreseeing God, with that of a father who is turned from his
course by the prayers of his creatures. But all such efforts are,
and are felt to be, hopeless failures. They involve the assertion and
negation of the same proposition in one breath. The problem remains
still insoluble; and we must either be content to leave it so, or we
must abandon one or other of the hostile premises.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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